Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/594

 590 GUSHING the "North American Review" on historical and legal topics. In 1825 he was elected a representative from Newburyport to the lower house of the Massachusetts legislature, and in 1826 a member of the state senate. At the beginning of his public life he was a member of the then republican party. In 1829 he vis- ited Europe on a tour of pleasure, and re- mained abroad nearly two years. The fruits of this tour were his " Reminiscences of Spain " (2 vols. 12mo, 1833), a collection of miscella- nies which indicated a minute acquaintance with Spanish history and literature. To this succeeded in the same year his elaborate " His- torical and Political Review of the late Revolu- tion in France," and of the consequent events in other European nations (2 vols.). In 1833 Mr. Gushing was again elected a representative from Newburyport to the Massachusetts legis- lature, in which office he continued two years. In 1834 he was elected from the Essex north district of Massachusetts a representative to congress, and served for four consecutive terms. He supported John Quincy Adams for the presi- dency, and was a whig until the accession of Mr. Tyler, whose administration he supported, and became classed as a democrat. In 1843 President Tyler nominated him as secretary of the treasury, but the nomination was rejected by the senate. In the summer of that year he went to China as commissioner, and in 1844 negotiated the first treaty of the United States government with the emperor of China. On his return he was again elected to represent New- buryport in the state legislature, and during the session of 1847 became conspicuous by his advocacy of the Mexican war. A bill to ap- propriate funds to equip the Massachusetts re- giment of volunteers having been defeated in the legislature, Mr. Gushing furnished the re- quisite sum from his own means. He was then appointed colonel of the regiment, and in the spring of 1847 accompanied it to Mexico. He was attached to the army of Gen. Taylor, and soon after received the appointment of briga- dier general. While still in Mexico, he was nominated by the democratic party of Massa- chusetts as its candidate for governor, but was defeated. In 1850, for the sixth time, he represented Newburyport in the legislature of Massachusetts. In the same year he was elect- ed as the first mayor of that city, and was re- elected the following year. In 1852 he was ap- pointed a justice of the Massachusetts supreme court, a post which he filled till March, 1853, when he was appointed by President Pierce United States attorney general, from which of- fice he retired March 4, 1857. In 1857, 1858, and 1859 he again served in the legislature of Massachusetts. In April, 1860, he was presi- dent of the democratic national convention at Charleston, S. C., and in .the following June of the convention of seceders from that body which met in Baltimore and nominated Breck- inridge for president. About the middle of December he was sent to Charleston by Presi- dent Buchanan as a confidential commissioner to the secessionists of South Carolina, to make arrangements about Fort Sumter ; but his mis- sion effected nothing. During the civil war he held no official position, but gave his influence to the cause of the Union. In 1866 he was appointed one of three eminent lawyers to re- vise and codify the laws of the United States. In 1872 he was one of the counsel for the United States at the Geneva conference for the settlement of the Alabama claims, and in 1873 published a book entitled " The Treaty of Washington," in which he sharply criticises the character and conduct of Sir Alexander Cockburn, the British arbitrator. In Decem- ber, 1873, he was appointed minister to Spain. In January, 1874, he was nominated to the office of chief justice of the United States, but the nomination was subsequently withdrawn. (I SUING, Luther Stearns, an American lawyer, born in Lunenburg, Mass., June 22, 1803, died in Boston, June 22, 1856. He became clerk of the Massachusetts house of representatives in 1832, judge of the court of common pleas in 1844, and after four years on the bench be- came reporter to the supreme court. In the last capacity he published eight volumes of re- ports. He was a leading editor for some years of the "Jurist and Law Magazine," and pub- lished " Rules of Proceedings and Debates in Deliberative Assemblies" (12mo, 1854), which is the standard text book on the subject in con- gress and the state legislatures generally, " In- troduction to the Study of Roman Law " (12mo> 1854), and "Law and Practice of Legislative Assemblies in the United States" (8vo, 1855). (TSIIIXG, Thomas, an American statesman, born in Boston, March 24, 1725, died Feb. 28, 1788. He graduated at Harvard college in 1744, and for many years represented Boston in the general court. He became speaker of that body in 1763, and his signature being affixed as speaker to all public papers, he became so prominent in the disputes with Great Britain that Dr. Johnson, in his " Taxation no Tyran- ny," remarked, " One object of the Americans is said to be, to adorn the brows of Mr. Gush- ing with a diadem." He was a member of the first and second congresses, was commissary general in 1775, judge of probate and of com- mon pleas in 1777, and in 1779 was elected lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, a station which he retained until his death. CUSHI1VG, William, an American jurist, born at Scituate, Mass., March 1, 1732, died there, Sept. 13, 1810. He was the son of Judge John Gushing, one of the presiding judges at the trial of the British soldiers for the massacre at Boston, March 5, 1770. He graduated at Har- vard college in 1751, studied law, was appoint- ed attorney general of the state, and in 1768 judge of probate for Lincoln co., Maine. In 1772 he became a judge of the superior court of Massachusetts, and in 1777 succeeded his father as chief justice of that court. He was made a judge of the supreme court of the state